k3s-ansible/COMPUTE_BLADE_AGENT.md

Compute Blade Agent Deployment Guide

Quick reference for deploying and managing the Compute Blade Agent in your k3s-ansible cluster.

Quick Start

Deploy Everything

ansible-playbook site.yml

Deploy Only Compute Blade Agent

ansible-playbook site.yml --tags compute-blade-agent

Skip Compute Blade Agent

ansible-playbook site.yml --skip-tags compute-blade-agent

Configuration

Enable/Disable Globally

Edit inventory/hosts.ini:

[k3s_cluster:vars]
enable_compute_blade_agent=true    # Set to false to disable

Enable/Disable Per-Node

Edit inventory/hosts.ini:

[worker]
cm4-02 ansible_host=192.168.30.102 ansible_user=pi enable_compute_blade_agent=true
cm4-03 ansible_host=192.168.30.103 ansible_user=pi enable_compute_blade_agent=false
cm4-04 ansible_host=192.168.30.104 ansible_user=pi

Verification

Check Service Status

ssh pi@<worker-ip>
sudo systemctl status compute-blade-agent

View Logs

ssh pi@<worker-ip>
sudo journalctl -u compute-blade-agent -f

Check Installation

ssh pi@<worker-ip>
/usr/local/bin/compute-blade-agent --version
ls -la /etc/compute-blade-agent/

File Locations

• Binary: /usr/local/bin/compute-blade-agent
• Config: /etc/compute-blade-agent/config.yaml
• Systemd Service: /etc/systemd/system/compute-blade-agent.service
• Logs: journalctl -u compute-blade-agent

Environment Variables

Configure via BLADE_ prefixed environment variables:

export BLADE_CONFIG_PATH=/etc/compute-blade-agent/config.yaml
/usr/local/bin/compute-blade-agent

Monitoring

Optional Kubernetes Resources

Deploy monitoring components:

kubectl apply -f manifests/compute-blade-agent-daemonset.yaml

This creates:

• Namespace: compute-blade-agent
• ConfigMap: compute-blade-agent-config
• DaemonSet: compute-blade-agent-exporter
• Service: compute-blade-agent-metrics

Prometheus Integration

To enable Prometheus scraping, uncomment the ServiceMonitor in the manifest:

apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1
kind: ServiceMonitor
metadata:
  name: compute-blade-agent
  namespace: compute-blade-agent
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: compute-blade-agent
  endpoints:
    - port: metrics
      interval: 30s
      path: /metrics

Troubleshooting

Service Not Running

# Check service status
sudo systemctl status compute-blade-agent

# View error logs
sudo journalctl -u compute-blade-agent -n 50

# Try restarting
sudo systemctl restart compute-blade-agent

Hardware Not Detected

1. Verify hardware is connected
2. Check logs for hardware errors
3. Ensure systemd service started correctly

Reinstall

# SSH to node
ssh pi@<worker-ip>

# Check if uninstall script exists
ls -la /usr/local/bin/*compute-blade*

# Run uninstall if it exists
sudo bash /usr/local/bin/k3s-uninstall-compute-blade-agent.sh 2>/dev/null || true

# Re-run Ansible
ansible-playbook site.yml --tags compute-blade-agent

Uninstall

From Single Node

ssh pi@<worker-ip>
sudo bash /usr/local/bin/k3s-uninstall-compute-blade-agent.sh

From All Worker Nodes

ansible worker -m shell -a "bash /usr/local/bin/k3s-uninstall-compute-blade-agent.sh" --become

Features

• Hardware Monitoring: Temperature, fan speed, button events
• Automatic Scaling: Critical mode on overheat (max fan + red LED)
• Identification: LED blinking for locating blades in racks
• Metrics Export: Prometheus-compatible metrics
• CLI Tool: bladectl for local/remote interaction

Files in This Repository

• roles/compute-blade-agent/tasks/main.yml - Installation role
• manifests/compute-blade-agent-daemonset.yaml - Kubernetes monitoring resources
• site.yml - Playbook that runs the role
• inventory/hosts.ini - Configuration variables
• README.md - Full documentation

Additional Resources

• Compute Blade Agent Repository
• Compute Blade Community